Lazarus, the rich man, and the unborn

Today's Gospel is the familiar parable of Lazarus and the rich man.

Fully expecting a homily that—and rightly so—would instruct the congregation on the necessity of noticing and feeding the hungry, I heard instead a no-holds-barred condemnation of the modern day "rich man"...those who ignore the plight of the unborn.

"Who are the Lazarus' of today? The unborn who are murdered brutally on a daily basis!" The words of the soft-spoken homilist, Father Gregory Staab, temporarily pitch-hitting at Saint Francis Chapel, ripped through the hushed worship space.

And those emulating the rich man?

Father Greg spoke of an abortion debate at Boston College he attended back maybe 15 years ago. The pro-life debater and the audience waited and waited for the pro-choice counterpart to show up. He never did.

After an hour or so, the pro-life speaker told the gathering that such was often the case.

When it came to slogans and signs and rhetoric, you could always count on a pro-choicer to be visible and loud. But call for a logical analysis of the issue and the pro-choice advocate tends to eschew the opportunity.

And this was over a decade ago.

Today, as Father Greg pointed out, it is scientifically impossible to deny that abortion snuffs out a human life. Which is why we don't hear these days much about "abortion rights" but more stuff like keeping abortion "safe" and "rare" and, of course...legal.

Upon reflection, I am thinking that the modern day "rich man" is not so much limited to the dedicated pro-choicer...but also includes those of us, including myself, who, while in complete comprehension of the atrocity which is abortion, have grown weary of the fight.

This weariness must not be allowed to overtake us. Because if it does, Satan will laugh, Jesus will cry, and we will ultimately end up not in the bosom of Christ but in the eternal death of Hell.